Glossary · Search Console metrics & reports
What Is the URL Inspection Tool in Google Search Console?
What the URL Inspection tool shows for a single URL, how the indexed result differs from the live test, what "URL is unknown to Google" means, and where the tool's answers stop.
Written by Sebastian Kinzlinger, Founder, Keylogs
Definition
The URL Inspection tool is a Google Search Console tool that reports what Google knows about one URL in your property: whether the indexed version is on Google, when it was last crawled, which canonical Google selected, and which enhancements it detected. It can also run a live test of the current page and request indexing.
Key takeaways
- The default result describes the version of the URL Google last indexed, not the page as it is live right now.
- "URL is unknown to Google" means Google has not seen the URL before; it is not an error on the page.
- The Google-selected canonical can only be read from the indexed result; the live test cannot predict it.
- A passing live test confirms Google can access the page, not that the page will be indexed.
- The URL Inspection API returns the indexed result only and allows 2,000 inspections per site per day.
On this page
How the URL Inspection tool reports on one URL
The tool gives information about Google's indexed version of a specific page, and also lets you test whether a URL might be indexable. [1]Google Search Console Help. URL Inspection tool You open it by pasting a fully qualified URL into the inspection bar at the top of any Search Console screen, or by clicking the inspect icon next to a URL in most reports; the URL must belong to the property you have open. [1]Google Search Console Help. URL Inspection tool
The first thing it shows is not a live test. The results reflect the most recently indexed version of the page, which may have changed or gone offline since Google last saw it. [1]Google Search Console Help. URL Inspection tool Everything else on the screen follows from that crawl: Google states that all information in the tool is derived from the last crawled version. [1]Google Search Console Help. URL Inspection tool
The result opens with one of four overall statuses. [1]Google Search Console Help. URL Inspection tool
| Overall status | What it means |
|---|---|
| URL is on Google | The URL is indexed, can appear in Search, and no problems were found with its enhancements. |
| URL is on Google, but has issues | Indexed, but an issue such as malformed structured data may stop an enhancement from showing. |
| URL is not on Google | The URL will not appear in Google Search results. The Page indexing section says why. |
| URL is an alternate version | The URL is an AMP page that is an alternate of a canonical non-AMP page. |
The Page indexing report and this tool are built to work together. The report counts URLs by status across the site and shows example URLs, up to 1,000 per status and not guaranteed to be complete; Google says it is not meant for investigating a specific page, and points to URL Inspection for that. [2]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report Status pages such as Duplicate without user-selected canonical are read in the report and confirmed in the tool.
What the indexed result contains
Below the overall status, the Page indexing section breaks the answer into three groups. [1]Google Search Console Help. URL Inspection tool
| Group | Field | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery | Sitemaps | Sitemaps that point to the URL, if submitted in the Sitemaps report or listed in robots.txt. Sitemaps found any other way are not listed. |
| Discovery | Referring page | A page Google possibly used to discover the URL. An empty field does not mean no page links to it. |
| Crawl | Last crawl, Crawled as | When Google last crawled the URL, and whether with the desktop or smartphone crawler. |
| Crawl | Crawl allowed?, Page fetch | Whether robots.txt blocks the URL, and whether Google could retrieve it from your server. |
| Crawl | Indexing allowed? | Whether the page carries a noindex rule. |
| Indexing | User-declared canonical | The canonical the page declares. "None" is fine if the page is not an alternate. |
| Indexing | Google-selected canonical | The URL Google chose as authoritative among similar pages. |
The "Indexing allowed?" field has one trap: when robots.txt blocks a page, the field always shows "Yes", because Google cannot read a noindex rule on a page it is not allowed to crawl. [1]Google Search Console Help. URL Inspection tool
The canonical fields are the reason most SEOs open the tool. Google states that the canonical can be determined only in the indexed data, and that the live test cannot predict whether the tested version will be treated as canonical. [1]Google Search Console Help. URL Inspection tool When the two canonical fields disagree on a page you declared, the different canonical post covers the usual causes.
What "URL is unknown to Google" means
The full message is "Page is not indexed: URL is unknown to Google", and Google's explanation is one sentence: Google has not seen this URL before. [1]Google Search Console Help. URL Inspection tool There is no indexed version, so there is no crawl date, no canonical and nothing in Discovery. The fix Google suggests is to run a live inspection, fix what you can, submit the URL for indexing and validate. [1]Google Search Console Help. URL Inspection tool
For a page published yesterday, this is normal. For a page that has been live for months, it usually means nothing points to it: no internal links from pages Google crawls, and no sitemap entry. That is a linking problem, not a page problem.
Indexed result vs live test
"Test live URL" fetches and examines the page in real time; the page must be reachable from the internet without a login. [1]Google Search Console Help. URL Inspection tool It is the right tool for checking a fix you just shipped, and the wrong one for predicting the outcome.
| Question | Indexed result | Live test |
|---|---|---|
| Which version of the page? | The one Google last crawled | The page as it is now |
| Sitemaps and referring pages | Shown | Not checked |
| Duplicate or alternate status | Shown | Not tested |
| Google-selected canonical | Shown | Cannot be predicted |
| Screenshot of the rendered page | Not available | Available |
| Redirects | Results describe the inspected URL, not the redirect target | Follows redirects first, without saying so |
Each row follows Google's description of the two modes. [1]Google Search Console Help. URL Inspection tool Because the live test cannot see duplicates or canonical choice, an indexable result and an indexed page are two different things.
Example: three URLs after a content merge
The table below is constructed to illustrate the pattern. A site merged two guides into one, kept a sort parameter on the category, and published a new page the same week. Each row is one inspection, with 28 days of clicks from the Performance report.
| URL inspected | Overall status | Indexing status | Google-selected canonical | Clicks (28 days) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
/guides/keyword-research | URL is on Google | Page is indexed | /guides/keyword-research | 860 |
/guides/keyword-research?sort=new | URL is not on Google | Duplicate without user-selected canonical | /guides/keyword-research | 0 |
/guides/keyword-gap-analysis | URL is not on Google | URL is unknown to Google | (none) | 0 |
Row one is healthy. Row two is the duplicate status working as intended: Google folded the variant into the clean URL, so its zero clicks are counted under row one. Row three has never been seen. The fix is not in the tool: link the new page from row one, add it to the sitemap, then request indexing. The merge or redirect post covers which retired URLs to inspect after a consolidation.
How to check a URL with it
- Paste the full URL, including protocol, into the inspection bar of the property it belongs to.
- Read the overall status, then the Page indexing reason.
- Compare "User-declared canonical" with "Google-selected canonical". Google notes the selected value can be a few hours out of date. [1]Google Search Console Help. URL Inspection tool
- Check "Last crawl". If you changed the page after that date, the result does not reflect the change yet. [2]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report
- Click "Test live URL" to confirm the current page is fetchable and indexable.
- If the page is new or changed, request indexing. Indexing is never instant, even when you submit a crawl request directly. [2]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report The request indexing guide covers when a request helps and when it does nothing.
The thing people get wrong
A green live test is read as "this page will be indexed". Google's answer is no: a valid live test only confirms that Google can access the page, and the live test does not check for duplicate or alternate status at all. [1]Google Search Console Help. URL Inspection tool A page can pass every live check and still be left out because Google treats it as a copy of another URL.
The mirror mistake is reading "URL is on Google" as "this page ranks". Google says the status does not guarantee the page will appear in results. [1]Google Search Console Help. URL Inspection tool An indexed page with no impressions is often one that loses every query to a sibling page, which is the keyword cannibalization pattern, not an indexing problem.
URL Inspection tool vs the Page indexing report vs the API
| URL Inspection tool | Page indexing report | URL Inspection API | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scope | One URL at a time | Whole site, grouped by reason | One URL per call |
| Live test | Yes | No | No: only the indexed version |
| Volume | Daily per-property limit, number not published | Up to 1,000 example URLs per status | 2,000 calls per site per day, 600 per minute |
Sources for the table: tool [1]Google Search Console Help. URL Inspection tool, report [2]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report, API [3]Google Search Central. Search Console API: Method index.inspect and limits [5]Google Search Central. Search Console API: Usage limits.
The API returns the same fields in machine-readable form. Its verdict values map onto Search Console's labels: PASS is "Valid", FAIL is "Error" or "Invalid", and NEUTRAL is "Excluded". [4]Google Search Central. Search Console API: UrlInspectionResult The Search Console API post shows how to call it next to Search Analytics.
Where the tool can mislead
The tool describes Google's copy, so a page you fixed after the last crawl still shows the old problem until Google crawls it again. [2]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report The reverse also happens: a URL can show as indexed here before it appears in the Page indexing report, because the report catches up later. [2]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report Several requirements for appearing in Search are not tested at all, including manual actions, security issues and legal removals. [1]Google Search Console Help. URL Inspection tool In the API, the Google-selected canonical is absent when the page is not indexed, and the last crawl time is absent when Google never crawled it successfully, so an empty field is a status, not missing data. [4]Google Search Central. Search Console API: UrlInspectionResult
None of this tells you how a page performs. Index status is a precondition; average position and CTR come from the Performance report. When two indexed URLs split one query, the problem is internal cannibalization, and the fix starts in a keyword map, not in URL Inspection.
Frequently asked questions
- What does "URL is unknown to Google" mean?
- It means Google has not seen the URL before, so there is no indexed version to report on. Run a live test to check that Google can fetch the page, fix anything the test flags, and then request indexing or make sure the URL is linked internally and listed in your sitemap.
- Is the URL Inspection tool a live test?
- Not by default. The first result shows the most recently indexed version of the page, which may differ from what is live now. Clicking "Test live URL" fetches the page in real time, but that test does not check sitemaps, referring pages or duplicate status.
- Does "URL is on Google" mean my page ranks?
- No. Google states that "URL is on Google" does not guarantee the page will appear in search results. It means the URL is indexed and can appear; whether it ranks for a query is a separate question the Performance report answers.
- How many URLs can I inspect per day?
- Search Console applies a daily limit of inspections and live tests per property but does not publish the number for the UI. The URL Inspection API allows 2,000 inspections per site per day and 600 per minute.
- Can I inspect a URL on a site I do not own?
- No. The URL must belong to the Search Console property you have open. For a page outside your properties, Google points to tests that do not require ownership, such as the Rich Results Test.
The bottom line
The URL Inspection tool is Search Console's answer to "what does Google know about this one URL": its index status, last crawl, how it was discovered and which canonical Google chose. The decision it supports is whether a page has a problem Google can see, or whether the problem is somewhere else. Read the indexed result first, use the live test only to confirm a fix, and remember that neither one tells you how the page ranks.
Article sources
- Google Search Console Help. “URL Inspection tool”. Accessed Nov 9, 2026.
- Google Search Console Help. “Page indexing report”. Accessed Nov 9, 2026.
- Google Search Central. “Search Console API: Method index.inspect”. Accessed Nov 9, 2026.
- Google Search Central. “Search Console API: UrlInspectionResult”. Accessed Nov 9, 2026.
- Google Search Central. “Search Console API: Usage limits”. Accessed Nov 9, 2026.
Keylogs requires writers to use primary sources — Google's own documentation and original Search Console data. Learn more about our editorial standards.
Related terms
- Duplicate without user-selected canonicalPage indexing status: Google judged the URL a duplicate, no canonical was declared, and it indexed another URL instead.
- Impressions (Search Console)Counted each time a link to your site appears in a loaded page of search results, whether or not anyone clicks it.
- Clicks (Search Console)One click is counted when a user leaves Google for your page from a search result; repeat clicks on the same link in one search count once.
- Performance report (Search Console)Search Console's main report: clicks, impressions, CTR and average position by query, page, country and device.
- Content consolidationMerging or redirecting competing pages so one URL carries all the signals that were split between them.
- Keyword cannibalizationTwo or more of your own pages ranking for the same query with the same intent, splitting clicks and ranking signals.
- Internal keyword cannibalizationYour own URLs competing with each other for one query — as opposed to competing with other sites.